There are generally over a million earthquake events every year with over a thousand of them being over magnitude 5.0. The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) reports about 50 earthquakes per day. We have made great progress in building our structures to be able to withstand most earthquakes which has helped to lower the cost in human life during these events, however, earthquakes still cause a tremendous amount of economic damage.
Grocery and other retail stores, laboratories, lumber yards, and warehouses and almost anyone who stores things on shelves can lose a lot of money when even a minor earthquake hits. Many items can be damaged or destroyed when falling from the shelves on which they are stored on. To help with this problem, it is known to add straps, bars and other barriers across the front of the shelves; however, these fixes make the items stored on the shelves harder to access and detract from the esthetic look of the shelves. Since earthquake events are random events, having to put up with these disadvantages are difficult since most of the time, the protections are not needed. Some systems require user activation on the first warning of the quake and this is an obvious disadvantage since most earthquakes are not predictable.
There is a need for an easy to use, non-obtrusive earthquake-activated shelf security system that is reliable, cost efficient and not esthetically distractive. There is also a need for an earthquake-activated shelf security system that can be used with existing shelf systems.